Manel Lledos

Manel Lledós, born in Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain) in 1955. At an early age he enrolls in the Llotja art school and works under the instruction of artist Victor Esteban Ripaux, a classical painter trained in the École des Beaux Arts in Paris.

In 1971, Lledós joins the Escola de Belles Arts de San Jordi in Barcelona. He spends months traveling around Spain, Italy and France, absorbing the art of the past as well as contemporary currents. At the end of the 70’s his work begins to move between a gestural field abstraction and a serial geometry.

Towards the end of the 70’s, Lledós begins to dream about moving to New York. In 1981, Lledós moves to New York to start anew. His decision is motivated by his need to experience a larger cultural context.

By the early 80’s, he establishes himself with a studio first in the Lower East Side, and later in Brooklyn, and exhibits with Joan Prats gallery as well as others throughout the Americas and Europe. In 1994, Lledós is hired as a Professor of painting by the Art Department of Kingsborough Community College (CUNY). Lledós still resides in Brooklyn and his studio is now in Dumbo.

For Lledós, painting is a rapprochement between the tangible and the abstract, the permanent and the transformative, the certain and the unexpected. His painting develops slowly towards an organic geometry which reflects on place, time and belonging.